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Re: Rolleyes News of The Day

So whats the deal with this? Now the Egyptians are dirty in all this?
Pretty much its no surprise over Syria.

Somewhere in Syria...Al-Qaeda leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri has “big plans” for new propaganda vehicle.
BY DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS & NICK GRACE
Broadcasting from a secret location in Syria, Al-Qaeda and its allies now have their own 24-hour television station, Pajamas Media has learned.
Known as Al-Zawraa, Arabic for “first channel,” the station broadcasts enemy propaganda and rebroadcasts of Western anti-war material, including Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. It is not connected with Al-Jazeera.
Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, is delighted by al-Zawraa. A U.S. military intelligence officer told Pajamas Media that the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Masri, “has long-term and big plans for this thing.” Previous attempts by al-Qaeda to set up media propaganda outlets have been limited to satellite radio and the Internet. Al-Zawraa, however, is seemingly well financed and striving for a broader appeal.
From that secret studio somewhere in Syria, al-Zawraa TV’s signal extends to the entire Arab world thanks to a satellite owned by Egypt, Pajamas Media has learned.
Egypt is officially an ally of the United States in the war on terror. It receives more than $1 billion a year in U.S. foreign aid, more than any other country on Earth except Israel.
The channel’s reach is not limited to Iraq—a fact that highlights the Egyptian government’s apparent permissiveness. Al-Zawraa is broadcast on Nilesat, a satellite administered by the Egyptian government. Through Nilesat, al-Zawraa’s signal blankets the Middle East and North Africa, thus ensuring that the insurgents’ message reaches the entire Arab world.Al-Zawraa TV began broadcasting on November 14. The channel was set up by the Islamic Army of Iraq, an insurgent group comprised of former Baathists who were loyal to Saddam Hussein and now profess a conversion to a bin Laden-like ideology, according to Middle East-based media monitor Marwan Soliman.
The Islamic Army of Iraq is subordinate to the Mujahideen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni insurgent groups, a military intelligence officer told Pajamas Media. The al-Zawraa network is viewed as “credible” by users of established jihadist internet forums.
Al-Zawraa’s content is heavy with insurgent propaganda, including audio messages from Islamic Army of Iraq spokesman Dr. Ali al-Na’ami and footage of the group’s frontline operations. The station openly calls for violence against Shia Iraqis and the Iraqi government. News anchors appear in military fatigues to rail against the ruling government, and news crawls urge viewers to support the Islamic Army of Iraq and “help liberate Iraq from the occupying U.S. and Iranian forces,” Marwan Soliman told Pajamas Media.
Sitting in the Fallujah Government Center in Fallujah, Iraq, military analyst Bill Roggio, who is embedded with the Military Transition Team, watched al-Zawraa with two soldiers from the Iraqi army and a pair of interpreters. Roggio reports that songs mourned Iraqi victims of the “U.S. occupiers,” and that images featured on al-Zawraa included “destroyed mosques, dead women and children, women weeping of the death of their family, bloodstained floors, the destruction of U.S. humvees and armored vehicles, and insurgents firing mortars, RPGs, rockets and AK-47s.” These pictures were meant to be provocative to jihad-minded youth. His complete account can be found on his blog.
Roggio told Pajamas Media that the station’s strategic role for insurgent and al-Qaeda information operations is clear: “Al-Zawraa is designed to recruit for and prolong the insurgency in Iraq. It openly espouses violence, particularly against the Shia, but also against the Iraqi government and security forces and Coalition troops.”

Radio Netherlands’ media analyst Andy Sennitt told Pajamas Media that al-Zawraa’s broadcasts on Nilesat creates questions about the Egyptian government’s role. “Nilesat is mostly Egyptian owned,” Sennit said, “so it means they will turn down any customer who is thought to produce material against Egypt’s national interest. So apparently the Egyptian authorities are happy with al-Zawraa.”
The programming originates from Syria, where its main backer, Mishaan al-Jabouri, a well-known Sunni Baathist agitator and former Iraqi parliamentarian, recently fled to escape an Iraqi arrest warrant for suspected corruption and embezzlement. He initially set the station up in Tikrit, Iraq, but in early November its studio was raided by authorities and closed down for incitement.
Al-Jabouri, who in Damascus during the final years of Saddam Hussein’s rule, is widely believed to have forged close ties with Saddam’s intelligence services. More recently, he has been linked to al-Qaeda.
The speed with which al-Zawraa was able to resume its transmissions from Syria and Nilesat after the raid on the Tikrit station is unusual, according to Sennitt. Moreover, the reach of al-Zawraa’s broadcasts indicates that the station is attempting to influence viewers far beyond Iraq.
Government officials tell Pajamas Media that they are trying to remove al-Zawraa from the airwaves. Jim Turner, deputy director of Defense Press Operations, told Pajamas Media in an e-mail that this is the State Department’s decision because “they are the department of the US Government that would interact with another country on such an issue.”
In turn, a State Department official told Pajamas Media, “We are strongly supporting the Iraqi efforts to work with the Egyptians to get this off the air.” The State Department’s comment seems designed to avoid diplomatic fallout, since Egypt’s control of Nilesat would allow it to stop al-Zawraa’s signal.
Turning off al Zawaraa without Egypt’s help would be nearly impossible. Jamming its signal may prove difficult since the physical location of the signal’s feed would need to be located and, according to Sennitt, it could be anywhere. “All that’s needed is a dish pointing at the satellite, and a transmitter on the correct uplink frequency. The satellite will carry whatever signal it receives.”

Re: Rolleyes News of The Day

Originally Posted by Dutchcedar

^^^ Believe it or not, I agree with this part:But for a different reason than you might expect.

I think we've gotten far too utilitarian in our development of land and think wide sides that are landscaped and have bicycle/walking paths should be part of any able community that's in the development stage. We're far too densely populated to be comfortable anymore. Plus, we'll be needing to find employment for a lot more of our friends to the south (thus the landscaping).

Yes Dutch I totally agree. I think it's a unique concept called planning or some such thing.

Now that you woke my up today please do allow for a little rant on my part.

Of all the crap dealing with schools (public) I fail to understand the mentality behind the elimination of Drivers Education and Drivers Training in the cirriculum of available courses - same holds true for the Industrial Arts - Metal Shop, Wood Shop, Electronics, Drafting, etc.

Seems these areas have gone by the wayside - a co-worker told me yesterday, his oldest son turned 16 and he was out taking him driving the old school way. Drivers Ed/Training is no longer available in our local school systems.

WTF am I paying $3g a year for in my property taxes, ~$2k of which goes into the schools. Lots of apartments in the area with kids that flood the schools. No problem with that - however, I wonder if their rents cover their fare share in the bill for education.

The responsibility for this of course does not lie in the pervue of the apartment renter - it's the GDMF'n jerkoffs in the local city council. (the same bunch of a$$holes that "Forgot" the bike paths - oh, but they remembered the bike paths and parks in the upscale neighborhoods THEY live in)

I would suspect that property tax revenues are disproportionate without even checking. (no wonder people go homicidal)

The owners of the apartment building are probably doing well with their investments, the local homeowners are getting screwed, especially those like myself, 52 yrs old male homeowner with no kids and of course the schools are withering away.

Re: Rolleyes News of The Day

Miss USA Tara Conner at Crobar with MTV's Quddus. Below, Conner is crowned. Donald Trump is threatening to strip Miss USA within days and punish the 20-year-old beauty after it was revealed she has thumbed her nose at the legal drinking age to carouse in Chelsea nightclubs.
Tara Conner has been drinking, partying and staying out late with a string of nightlife boyfriends, then skipping some of the events[sleeping with Mr Trump] that come with her title, worried friends told Rolleyes News.
"She's working her way through New York's nightlife promoters and club owners," said one ex-boyfriend. "The problems are . . . the going out late at night, not caring about the title and not being a role model, not showing up for things."
The pageant said yesterday Conner was keeping her crown for now - but that it "will be evaluating her behavioral and personal issues to see what we can do to work with her, and what we will do about her reign going forward." Sleeping with the TLR Regulars may improve her standing....said unknown sources.
Real estate mogul Trump, who owns Miss USA and Miss Universe , will decide Conner's fate within a week. He told CNN she was "going through some personal problems and difficulties right now. and shes a slut"
Conner turns 21 next week, but since winning the pageant title in April she has been a regular at nightclubs in Chelsea - a district notorious for underage drinking....and prostitution. Nightlife scenesters told Rolleyes News she parties at Guest House, Ultra and Stereo, and spent the summer carousing with JimZ staffers at their Southport party house. And she regularly hits the clubs with an even younger friend - her 18-year-old roommate Katie Blair, Miss Teen USA....who is employed by Dutchcedar as a babysitter at his California mansion.

Re: Rolleyes News of The Day

By Joseph Neff, Benjamin Niolet and Anne Blythe, Staff writers
The head of a private DNA laboratory said under oath today that he and District Attorney Mike Nifong agreed not to report DNA results favorable to Duke lacrosse players charged with rape.
Brian Meehan, director of DNA Security of Burlington, said his lab found DNA from unidentified men in the underwear, pubic hair and rectum of the woman who said she was gang-raped at a lacrosse party in March. Nurses at Duke Hospital collected the samples a few hours after the alleged assault. Meehan said the DNA did not come from Reade Seligmann, David Evans, or Collin Finnerty, who have been charged with rape and sexual assault in the case.
Meehan struggled to say why he didn’t include the favorable evidence in a report dated May 12, almost a month after Seligmann and Finnerty had been indicted. He cited concerns about the privacy of the lacrosse players, his discussions at several meetings with Nifong, and the fact that he didn’t know whose DNA it was.
Under questioning by Jim Cooney, a defense attorney for Seligmann, Meehan admitted that his report violated his laboratory’s standards by not reporting results of all tests.
Did Nifong and his investigators know the results of all the DNA tests? Cooney asked.
“I believe so,” Meehan said.
“Did they know the test results excluded Reade Seligmann?” Cooney asked.
“I believe so,” Meehan said.
Was the failure to report these results the intentional decision of you and the district attorney? Cooney asked.
“Yes,” Meehan replied.
At that answer, several people in the packed courtroom clapped. Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith III warned the standing-room only crowd to be quiet or leave.
Meehan’s testimony differed from a statement Nifong made at the beginning of today’s hearing.
“The first I had heard of this particular situation was when I was served with this particular motion” on Wednesday, Nifong told the judge. After court, Nifong clarified his remarks to say that he knew about the DNA results.
"And we were trying to, just as Dr. Meehan said, trying to avoid dragging any names through the mud but at the same time his report made it clear that all the information was available if they wanted it and they have every word of it,” Nifong said.
Joseph B. Cheshire V, a lawyer for Evans, said he was troubled by today’s testimony.
“If any of the lacrosse players were excluded, they simply wouldn’t put it in the report,” he said. “It raises some troublesome questions about (Nifong), who has an obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence and turn it over to the defense.” In a response to reports that the accuser in the Duke lacrosse case gave birth recently, UNC Health care issued a statement at about 1:30 p.m. saying that the woman is at UNC Hospitals for care related to her pregnancy but has not given birth.